Erin Reilly's (The Guardian) take on 'Twirlgate', is a very well written piece on gender equality in sport, it reminds us why we need to ensure we respect all athletes and ensure the media uphold their dignity.

This year’s Australian Open started fairly well for those interested in the place of women in sport. First, the mixed commentary teams for both men’s and women’s matches was a refreshing change from the usual arrangement where men can comment on women’s sport, but not the other way around. Then, Heather Watson broke one of women’s sport’s taboos by discussing how symptoms of her period had affected her game. The very real physical effects of menstruation, including severe pain for some female athletes, is a challenge rarely recognised. Related: Eugenie Bouchard happy to twirl if men flex muscles at Australian Open But the relief was short-lived. On Wednesday, commentator Ian Cohen, interviewing Eugenie Bouchard, asked her to twirl to show off her outfit. Bouchard complied, and those two steps forward for women’s sport were overshadowed by one big step back. Cohen’s request was entirely inappropriate and unacceptable from a professional sports journalist. It denied Bouchard the respect she deserves as a professional athlete, instead treating her like a little girl. The incident encapsulated many of the ways female athletes are treated differently to their male counterparts. The preoccupation with the way female athletes look – both their physical attractiveness and what they wear – is part of the way women’s sport is treated differently to men’s sport. Where male athletes are judged primarily on their physical prowess, female athletes are expected to be powerful and feminine simultaneously. It treats female athletes as quaint curiosities rather than serious athletes. In post-match interviews, male athletes are usually asked about their game and their opponent, not their outfits. In contrast, female athletes are expected to be able to act in ways that are seen as being feminine, including talking about their clothes, their love life and even, in Bouchard’s case, her fondness for Justin Bieber. It is one of the ways in which a clear distinction is drawn between female and male athletes. By focusing attention on issues other than the match itself, these conversations contribute to the way women’s sport is trivialised. Physical appearance is also a far more significant part of the way female athletes are talked about and promoted compared to their male peers. For athletes like Bouchard and Maria Sharapova, this is a double-edged sword: because they represent some of the western ideals of beauty, they have the opportunity to earn substantially more money in endorsements than some of their equally successful peers. The trade-off, though, is that their on-court success is often secondary to this. The focus on female athletes’ appearance is part of the reason Cohen’s request was so inappropriate. It was also unacceptable because it perpetuates the idea of female bodies as public property. The idea that women’s bodies are often treated as public property is not a new one, nor is it something only experienced by female athletes. Any woman who has been told by a stranger to smile or that their butt looks big or that they have great legs as they walk down the street has experienced this phenomenon. Like street harassment and body shaming, asking Bouchard to twirl was a subtle reminder that female bodies are something to be enjoyed and commented on by others. By acquiescing to the request and playing along, Bouchard does share some responsibility in this. Yes, she is young and is still learning how to deal with the media, but that is not an excuse granted to her male counterparts. Nick Kyrgios received a substantial wave of criticism this week for the way he responded to what was a fairly silly question in a post-match interview. He was called arrogant and cocky. Even thought he is younger than Bouchard, the public expect him to know how to handle media in a way they simply don’t for Bouchard. These lower expectations for female athletes are yet another way women’s sport is treated as inferior to men’s sport. We should expect better from journalists. Cohen’s performance is surely enough to show he’s not the right person for the job. But we should also expect more from female athletes than playing along. What a powerful statement about the seriousness of women’s sport it would be for athletes to say “no” when they are asked ridiculous and belittling questions: no, I will not twirl. No, I will not tell you who made my outfit. No, I will not discuss my love life. Female athletes deserve better than to have their sports treated as a novelty sideshow. While some slow progress is encouraging, it seems that for every two steps forward, there’s one step back.Article from : http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/23/no-i-wont-twirl-what-eugenie-bouchard-should-have-said

The following extract is from an article written by Mehdi Hasan, the political director of the Huffington Post UK.

You and I didn't like George W Bush. Remember his puerile declaration after 9/11 that "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists"? Yet now, in the wake of another horrific terrorist attack, you appear to have updated Dubya's slogan: either you are with free speech... or you are against it. Either vous êtes Charlie Hebdo... or you're a freedom-hating fanatic.

Yes, the attack was an act of unquantifiable evil; an inexcusable and merciless murder of innocents. But was it really a "bid to assassinate" free speech

Please get a grip. None of us believes in an untrammelled right to free speech. We all agree there are always going to be lines that, for the purposes of law and order, cannot be crossed; or for the purposes of taste and decency, should not be crossed. We differ only on where those lines should be drawn.

Has your publication, for example, run cartoons mocking the Holocaust? No? How about caricatures of the 9/11 victims falling from the twin towers? I didn't think so (and I am glad it hasn't). Consider also the "thought experiment" offered by the Oxford philosopher Brian Klug. Imagine, he writes, if a man had joined the "unity rally" in Paris on 11 January "wearing a badge that said 'Je suis Chérif'" - the first name of one of the Charlie Hebdo gunmen. Suppose, Klug adds, he carried a placard with a cartoon mocking the murdered journalists. "How would the crowd have reacted?... Would they have seen this lone individual as a hero, standing up for liberty and freedom of speech? Or would they have been profoundly offended?" Do you disagree with Klug's conclusion that the man "would have been lucky to get away with his life"?

Let's be clear: I agree there is no justification whatsoever for gunning down journalists or cartoonists. I disagree with your seeming view that the right to offend comes with no corresponding responsibility; and I do not believe that a right to offend automatically translates into a duty to offend.

The former Charlie Hebdo journalist Olivier Cyran argued in 2013, an "Islamophobic neurosis gradually took over" the magazine after 9/11, which then effectively endorsed attacks on "members of a minority religion with no influence in the corridors of power"

As the novelist Teju Cole has observed, "It is possible to defend the right to obscene... speech without promoting or sponsoring the content of that speech."And why have you been so silent on the glaring double standards? Did you not know that Charlie Hebdo sacked the veteran French cartoonist Maurice Sinet in 2008 for making an allegedly anti-Semitic remark? Were you not aware that Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published caricatures of the Prophet in 2005, reportedly rejected cartoons mocking Christ because they would "provoke an outcry" and proudly declared it would "in no circumstances... publish Holocaust cartoons"?Muslims, I guess, are expected to have thicker skins than their Christian and Jewish brethren.

When I first began to see demands to publish these anti-Muslim cartoons, the cynic in me thought perhaps this was really just about sanctioning some types of offensive speech against some religions and their adherents, while shielding more favored groups. In particular, the west has spent years bombing, invading and occupying Muslim countries and killing, torturing and lawlessly imprisoning innocent Muslims, and anti-Muslim speech has been a vital driver in sustaining support for those policies. So it’s the opposite of surprising to see large numbers of westerners celebrating anti-Muslim cartoons - not on free speech grounds but due to approval of the content. Defending free speech is always easy when you like the content of the ideas being targeted, or aren't part of (or actively dislike) the group being maligned.

In the wake of the horrific shooting at the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, illustrators and cartoonists around the world come together in solidarity with the 12 artists and ordinary people who died in that event by doing what they do best – drawing cartoons that express their thoughts and emotions more eloquently than words ever could. Their messages range from anger and defiance to grief and hope, but there is a common thread. It is clear that, in their eyes, the people at Charlie Hebdo have died as martyrs who championed the freedom of expression and of the press, which are some of the core elements of a free society.

From : http://www.boredpanda.com/charlie-hebdo-shooting-tribute-illustrators-cartoonists/